David Frank Levi (born August 29, 1951) is a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

jurist and former Dean of the Duke University School of Law. From 1990 to 2007, he was a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, serving as Chief Judge from 2003 to 2007. At the time Levi left the bench, he was widely considered to be one of the top federal judges in the nation. He had been mentioned as a possible nominee to the Supreme Court.

Education

Levi was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. His father was

Edward H. Levi Edward Hirsch Levi (June 26, 1911 – March 7, 2000) was an American law professor, academic leader, and government lawyer. He served as dean of the University of Chicago Law School from 1950 to 1962, president of the University of Chicago from ...

, a former president of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

under President Gerald R. Ford. He received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in History and Literature ''magna cum laude'' in 1972 and then entered the graduate program in history at Harvard where he eventually specialized in English legal history, receiving a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

. He received his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

in 1980 from the Stanford Law School, where he graduated

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, whi ...

and was President of the '' Stanford Law Review''.

Career

From 1980 to 1981, Levi served as clerk for Judge Ben C. Duniway of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

and from 1981 to 1982 as clerk for

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

Justice

Lewis F. Powell Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 to 1987. Born in Suffolk, Virginia, he gradua ...

. In 1983, he joined the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California as a prosecutor. In 1986 he was appointed by President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

as the

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...

for the Eastern District of California. Levi directed a major corruption investigation involving several California legislators and was also a member of the

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

's Advisory Committee and Chair of the Public Corruption Committee of United States Attorneys.

Federal judicial service

Levi was nominated by President

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

on August 3, 1990, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California vacated by Judge

Edward Dean Price Edward Dean Price (February 12, 1919 – November 3, 1997) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Education and career Born in Sanger, California, Price received an Artiu ...

. He was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on September 28, 1990, and received commission on October 1, 1990. He served as Chief Judge from 2003 to 2007. His service terminated on June 30, 2007, due to resignation. In 1994 Levi was appointed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist to the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He was appointed Chair of the Civil Rules Committee in 2000. In October 2003 he was appointed Chair of the Standing Committee on the Rules of Practice and Procedure, which sits at the top of the federal judiciary's rulemaking process; in 2010 he was reappointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to serve as a member of that committee.

Other service

He was the first president and a founder of the Milton L. Schwartz American Inn of Court, now the Schwartz-Levi American Inn of Court, at the King Hall School of Law, University of California at Davis, and has served as Chair of the Ninth Circuit's Task Force on Race, Religious and Ethnic Fairness and as the President of the Ninth Circuit District Judges Association. In 2005, Levi was elected to the Council of the

American Law Institute The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. ...

(ALI) and currently is serving as its president. A member of the ALI since 1991, Judge Levi was an Adviser to its Federal Judicial Code Revision Project and an Adviser to the Institute's new Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation. He was elected a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2007. When Levi stepped down as dean of Duke Law School on June 30, 2018, he became the inaugural director of the school's Carl and Susan Bolch Judicial Institute founded that year with the mission of "advancing the importance of rule-of-law principles and a fair and independent judiciary and raising public awareness during lapses or failures in the

rule of law The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...

." He is coauthor of ''Federal Trial Objections'' (James 2002). He is on the Rehnquist Center's National Board of Advisers.

Personal

His father was

. His great-grandfather was A.G. Becker.

References

External links

FJC BioDavid F. Levi, Career ProfileWall Street Journal, Law BlogAbove the Law, Legal Tabloid

Appearances
on C-SPAN.org , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Levi, David F. 1951 births 20th-century American judges 20th-century American Jews American legal scholars Assistant United States Attorneys Duke University School of Law faculty Harvard University alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Deans of law schools in the United States Lawyers from Chicago Living people Stanford Law School alumni United States Attorneys for the Eastern District of California United States district court judges appointed by George H. W. Bush 21st-century American Jews